Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [119]
Pam switched off the television and swivelled on her stool to face the lab bench. Behind her were five cages. ‘You were,’ said Pam.
In the cages were three cats and two dogs. Pam sipped her coffee and stared at them. ‘Anyone listening to me talking to animals might think I’m mad,’ she said. ‘Or, to be more generous, temporarily unhinged by grief. The result of a recent bereavement.’ Pam glanced at the far corner of the lab where bright light flooded out from the annexe. ‘But they’d be wrong, wouldn’t they?’
One of the cats, a small ginger creature, yowled at her, pushing a tentative paw between the bars of its cage. Pam ignored it. ‘I have a theory,’ she said. ‘I’ve been doing some reading about this drug called warlock.’ She got up from her stool and went over to the sink area where a jug full of coffee sat on a heating unit. She poured herself a fresh mug, paused to add milk from the refrigerator and returned to her stool. She blew on the coffee and looked at the animals on the bench.
‘It seems that warlock has a number of highly unusual effects on human consciousness. We’re primarily concerned with just one of these. The exteriorization of inner thought processes. There are numerous well‐documented examples of subjects who projected emotional states onto other humans when dosed with warlock. These projected states often amounted to a shared alternative reality. Mass hysteria, if you prefer. At least, that’s the verdict in most of the stuffier scientific literature.’ Pam sipped carefully at her coffee, found that it had cooled sufficiently and took a large swallow.
‘Another aspect which receives short shrift from experts is the reported incidence of telepathy. Subjects claim to be able to read each other’s minds when given a sufficiently large dose of the drug. Even more outrageous, according to the authorities, are stories of personality transmigration.’ Pam frowned at the animals in their cages.
‘Possession, you might call it. The body of one person being invaded by the soul of another.’
The laboratory was silent except for the sound of the compressor in the refrigerator. Pam leaned forward, resting her elbows on the lab bench. The animals stared out of their cages at her. ‘These are the facts. First and most important, my brother is dead. I don’t believe that was an accident. Nor do I believe it was an accident that several animals managed to escape shortly before or after his death. Or murder, as I prefer to call it.’
One of the dogs made a faint whine and edged back in its cage under Pam’s unwavering stare. ‘My brother was murdered,’ she said. ‘That is a fact. What is also a fact is that we have three human test subjects whose personalities and intelligence seem to have abandoned them. We also have a group of animals who have been behaving in a quite remarkable fashion, exhibiting behaviour and thought processes far beyond anything normal. Now, none of this seems to have penetrated to my colleagues. I suspect that deep inside their minds they have formulated a suspicion similar to mine, only to discard it. Which is understandable, when you consider what an extraordinary notion it is. But the true scientist must be prepared to consider the extraordinary.’ Pam rose from her stool. ‘I have a theory. And I intend to test it.’
Pam went back to the sink and selected a clean paper filter. She fitted it into the funnel and placed it in the neck of